Naver to invest into three visual recognition and AI start-ups

Naver, South Korea's largest web service company, will invest into three start-up companies specialized in visual recognition and AI.

"We expect our advancing AI will collaborate and draw positive synergy effects through collaborations with the startups," said D2SF (D2 Startup Factory), a startup-nurturing wing of Naver, in a statement on Thursday.

The total investment of about 1.5 billion won (1.3 million US dollars) will be made into three start-ups -- "Furiosa AI", a chipmaker which develops and manufactures chips optimized for AI operation, "Crowdworks", a crowd sourcing platform which creates data essential for AI's learning process, and "Deepixel", a programming company which develops visual recognition technology, allowing AI to identify and track objects through a camera.

The web service giant has been boosting its AI capability since last year. It has built R&D centers for AI and autonomous vehicles, in an aim to take the advantageous position in the global AI industry.